The Obama Way: Bluster, Bully, Bribe

The White House took great offense recently when conservatives suggested President Obama might be trading a judicial appointment for a wavering Democrat’s vote on his health care reform plan. “Absurd,” a miffed administration official told Politico.com. Wherever could the American people get such an impression? Let us count the ways.

On Wednesday, the very day Obama hosted 10 swing Democrats who had opposed the expansive health care takeover bill in November, the White House issued a press release trumpeting the nomination of Scott M. Matheson Jr. to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Matheson just happens to be the brother of Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah — one of the 10 Dems invited to sip wine and nosh on calorically correct appetizers with the arm-twister-in-chief.

The seat on the 10th Circuit has been vacant for nearly a year. When one of the judges, Michael McConnell, resigned to take a lucrative post at Stanford Law School last summer, Matheson — Rhodes Scholar, law school professor and dean — let the White House know right away he wanted the job. For nearly a year, there was no action.

Liberal groups have been complaining for months about the glacial pace of Obama’s judicial nominations — a predicament they blame not solely on obstructionist Republicans, but on Obama’s own team of incompetent, indecisive foot-draggers who put the issue at the bottom of their priority list. (It’s worth noting that Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch supports Matheson’s candidacy.)

As the National Law Journal pointed out at the beginning of this year, “the Obama administration has been slower than the Bush administration was in sending judicial nominations to the Senate, submitting 12 circuit nominations last year compared with 28 for Bush in 2001. The White House last named a circuit nominee on Nov. 4.”

Now, out of nowhere, comes the announcement of Matheson’s nomination — in the heat of White House vote-grubbing to salvage the Democrats’ government health care designs? To quote Dana Carvey’s old Church Lady character on “Saturday Night Live”: How conveeenient.

Let us consider the possibility, for a brief moment, that this is all merely coincidence.

Is the White House so fantastically blind and tone-deaf that it failed to detect the blood-red flags and blaring alarm bells that Scott Matheson’s judicial nomination would raise coming on the very day Obama was wooing his brother? Incorrigibly corrupt or incorrigibly stupid. Take your pick.

The perception of a judgeship-for-Obamacare-vote deal is, of course, horribly unfair to Matheson, who seems more than qualified for the position. But full blame for creating that unmistakable perception lies squarely at the feet of the rank opportunists in the White House, whose timing is worse than a broken metronome.

This debacle comes on the heels of damning disclosures about other possible White House bribery. Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania admitted to veteran Philly newsman Larry Kane that Team Obama dangled a “high-ranking” position in the administration if he dropped out of the Senate race and left incumbent Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter alone.

In Colorado, the Denver Post reported last fall that Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina “offered specific suggestions” for an Obama administration job to far-left Democrat Andrew Romanoff if he withdrew his challenge to White House-backed incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

And earlier this month, The Washington Times noted that Mary Patrice Brown, the person assigned by the Justice Department to oversee an internal investigation into the shady dismissal of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation cases, is now “the leading candidate for a federal judgeship — for which she is being vetted by some of the same offices she supposedly is investigating.”

So, wherever did we get the impression that pay-for-play is the Obama way? Somewhere, Chicago corruptocrat Rod Blagojevich — who wanted to play, but didn’t get paid — is laughing bitterly.

Michelle:
You need to write more inflammatory articles that will bring out the conservative base right now or do not write at all. Judges? Please. That is a deluded issue at best, with a degree of separation to the abortion issue which I see going nowhere. On top of it all, you left solid opportunities to show the under the table dealing of a Pelosi Congress regarding healthcare.

Now the War on Terror, that's an issue which will bring people out in droves, especially seeing how Democrats ran on a defeatist campaign in 2006, and now want to suddenly turn around and say W. was right in 2010. Paint Obama as fiddling away on his healthcare bill as Nero did when Rome was burning. Now that's a smear article!

Me? I see benefits from an Obama presidency. Call me wishful, but I fail to concede the point of immobility as a conservative inside the Obama administration. Remember, he works for us too.

Imagine a cabinet of the following:
Gephardt: Secretary of State
Marcinko: Secretary of Defense
Petraeus: Joint Chief of Staff
Giuliani: Attorney General
Odierno: Chief of Staff
Congress: Republican

Abortion will always be an issue because let's face it, for the most part, the masses in America really are animals and barbarians. Obama has superman standing in the rest of the world. Please, I beg you, let's keep that alive for an American Executive and take our power via subversive internal affairs, like dictating his pluralistic cabinet.

Right now American conservatives are a a conquered people, and we should learn to live as such!

The man doesn't want to learn, Soros is funding his existenmce. He does adhere to commonm sense, but only speaks of corruption in liberal terms ignoring what is going on in Washington. Maybe he wants to be a guard at a Gulag station somewhere in Alaska.

Robin

You really think an Obama cabinet with these bureaucrats will be different, or that a Republican congress is good simply because it is Republican? I'm not sure what it is you were criticizing about MIchelle's article, and fail to glean any point whatsoever from your comments. Oh well.

http://intensedebate.com/people/eerieSteve eerieSteve

Robin:
I am calling on conservatives to lower restraint and be more vicious. The DNC is wounded, but when it is wounded it is the most dangerous.

It will not be judges which win the election in 2010, so why waste your time? I'm afraid this will be a 1998 mid term election, where conservatives actually lost seats in the midst of the Lewinsky affair as the Democrats played right up the victim hood angle.

Conservatives have a solid opportunity to really cause serious harm to the Democratic Party. They do it to conservatives every night with the latest roll call of "Look who W. killed today!"

Michael Steele needs to exhibit the creature in which the Democratic Party has evolved. It won in 2006 and 2008 by cannibalizing America, and now it has run a muck and cannibalized itself to the point where it has no principals except to stay in power no matter the cost.

ACORN is making a comeback. Rove is on Meet the Depressed. The war is starting up and although we have a couple of grinders we have no Michael Jordan. I actually heard someone call Bill Clinton a competent president today. WTF?

Hopefully W.'s book will come out before the election, because so far he was the only one who stood up and fight. No. People do not listen to Joe the Plumber for a reason. But an ex-President? That's a golden goose the Republican party has exiled.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Poppakap Poppakap

StinkySteve,

Don't even try to convince anyone here at FPM that you are a conservative. We've seen enough trolls over the years to recognize one with very little effort. So go back to whatever whacked out pinko rag you frequent and leave us alone.

Oh, and congrats on earning $5 for posting on a conservative web site. I'm sure Mr. Soros is proud of you and thinks his money is well spent.

poptoy

What else to you expect from Muslim thinking?

xathnealon

This kind of overt corruption speaks to the complicity of the mainstream media where most deadened pop culture Americans still get their news. The leftist media has their man in the WH and he can do anything he wants -we've seen that – his Hitlerian speech yesterday in Philadelphia was off the charts but you see if anyone says that then they are right wing nuts – oh well, one thing you can say about the Chicago boys, they've got the right man for the job, can't say anything about all this bribery and strong arming lest you be called racist, a Muslim hater, anti-poor people and the rest of the nonsense. We get it Michelle, but what do you do about a bunch of nihilists?

http://intensedebate.com/people/eerieSteve eerieSteve

If the enemy is prone to deny all things perceived, stimulate him. But Obama is not a nihilist. If anything, he is a populist in the spirit of John Steinbeck. American, but depressed.

I recommend exploiting his own strengths. Who's to say the people are exclusively Obama's own strength? I recommend bringing referendums in liberal districts, like his hometown of Chicago, Boston or California stating things like "Barney Frank should be held accountable for the fiscal collapse." or "Chris Dodd is why I do not have a job."

That will cause the DNC to divert political funds at their once strengths, putting them in play for the first time when the political environment is disastrous to their causes. Really? Do you think people are thinking Cap and Trade when there is 10% unemployment?

http://intensedebate.com/people/dashsports dashsports

Obama's style reminds me of Muhammad, he will do anything to get his way and he will run roughshod over anyone in his way. The next thing we will hear is that he is getting revelations from God or Allah to support his policies and endeavors!

Messenger

Everyday this administration causes feelings in me of radical revenge. I am to the point where I will not even tune in to any program on tv that is on one of these leftist stations in the media. I hope to get other people to see that the media does rely on advertisers and the revenue that comes with that. If advertisers find that the best reception they get comes from more conservative stations that's where they will puit their money. I know, it's difficult to even find a conservative station. Even FOX tiptoes around certain issues. Being partially owned by Saudis does affect what the so called know it alls are allowed, or willing to say.

GET RADICAL. Find ways to take the money away from anything that supports the leftist agenda. Some manufactures and producers (Gates, Ford, etc.) funnel huge funds to the left. Whose money are they using to do that? Yours, of course. Do some research and avoid giving money to corporations who in turn give money to leftist organizations. Let's start a list.

http://intensedebate.com/people/ladyruth54 ladyruth54

Robert that was really good…thanks for sharing.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Poppakap Poppakap

Bob,

When are you gonna stop posting the same old crap every day? Don't you have anything new or original to say? You've been doing this for months now, so spare us. I'm starting to get the feeling you're mental.